


Quid Pro Quo

by j_marquis



Category: Psycho-Pass, 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Existentialism, Gen, What if?, generally weird and thinky, minor instances of other characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4847021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_marquis/pseuds/j_marquis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of it's expansion, the Sibyl System finds an immortal. Now they have to learn what to do with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quid Pro Quo

He had lived long enough, by now, by far, to see kings and empires, regimes and dictatorships rise and fall. But this had taken him by surprise. He should have seen the warning signs, he realized, in hindsight, realized what was happening in Japan would eventually make it's way to him. He had thought about going to Japan, seeing what it was that was keeping them closed off from the chaos that had become the rest of the world, but staying away felt better. There was no castle, there was no war. No hints of his father coming back. Just machines. Machines that read your intentions, your stability. That told you whether or not you were suited for their society.

He wasn't sure he understood. But he had to admire their efficiency.

He thought, perhaps, by staying in the forests, away from the world, he could avoid the numbers and the colors, the regulation of the thing that called itself Sibyl. But in their drive, their move all the way out to the corner of Eastern Europe he was calling his own, they sought out stragglers and refugees to categorize the mortals. One of their fighters, their so called military force, found him. He let them find him. He wanted to know what this thing thought of him. How would they color someone who had lived so many lives?

The man who found him was small, slight and nervous, with an unruly mop of red hair that shielded his face from the world. And he aimed his weapon, eyes going wide.

"We, we can't judge this one," the man, no, the boy, really, stammered into a wrist mounted communication. Japanese. So they must have sent a team from the source to take his home. (If he could even claim this place as home. Even the Earth where his home once stood had likely been lost to time.)

A girl and a man with a metal arm escorted him to a plane. They herded him inside, chained his wrists, asked him his name, where he was from, what he was doing in broken English. It was easier to pretend he didn't understand, responded in a language no one was still alive to know. They didn't know the difference. The girl tried for kindness, and the man would defend her with his life.

These mortals reminded him of his mortals. The same sadness. Eyes that had seen more than mortals were meant to. They could have been his mortals, in another life. But after a time, after no answers, they gave up trying to speak to him, let him sleep.

He was woken with the jolt of the plane landing, and the metal arm grabbed his arm a bit too rough, pulled him with them. To them, he was a prisoner. But he had been a prisoner before. This was handled with a sense of confusion, an air of distrust. They didn't hate him, no. They didn't understand him. The girl understood more than the man, but she trusted him less. And she made no attempt to explain to either of them. So it was a secret kept, after all. What they thought he was.

This place was heavy with human life, all of it gathered into one city. Easier for the system to monitor that way, he supposed. But the scanners, mechanical drones, turned away from him. He didn't register on their system. Of course they would want to take him to their leaders. Show them the anomaly. See if someone more powerful than they were could judge him. But their computers were made to judge humans, and he was not sure he had ever been that.

(Distantly, he was glad he had chosen a more human appearance to present himself to this new world. Genya Arikado was often mistaken for human, and these mortals did not see him as anything but.)

He was left alone in a room with something less human even than he was. A woman, ostensibly, old, refined. But there was nothing human in that room. There was nothing alive in that room. Nothing, even, made of flesh. The thing was colder than any of the monsters he had fought, and he was immediately on alert, reaching for a sword he no longer carried with him. It smiled at him, offered him a seat. He didn't take it.

"We cannot judge you." It told him.

He didn't respond.

"Our system does not even recognize you as human."

That, he figured, should not surprise him. So he didn't react.

"What are you?" It asked.

"I could ask the same of you."

It tilted it's head, regarded him curiously. "My Inspector told me you didn't speak Japanese."

"It's easier to pretend I do not. Fewer questions that way."

"You must understand, though, that we do have questions."

"As do I. Do they really think you're human?"

"They do."

"You'll have to create a new appearance, then, after a time. They'll think you age." Humans notice that sort of thing, he added, mentally. Wondered a brief moment if it could read his mind.

It couldn't.

"We'll consider it. But I believe the phrase is 'Quid Pro Quo.' An answer in exchange for mine." It prompted.

"What do you want to know?"

"Do you have a name?"

"I have many."

It regarded him curiously. "Then how should I refer to you?"

"Alucard." He answered, automatically. "It's as good a name as any. What are you?"

"The Sibyl System, or a head of it. As we expand, we take many heads."

"But you were the first."

"One question at a time. Why can we not judge you?"

"You were made to judge humans."

"Then you are not?"

"Quid pro quo. What are you?"

"Come with me."

It opened a hidden door, walked him down too many flights of stairs for him to pay attention to. It felt like descending to the heart of the castle, the few times he had. He remembered, with astonishing clarity, being small, holding the hem of his father's cloak as they swept down the spiraling staircase. When he showed him the heart of the castle, when his name was still Adrian. A name that had only ever been said with love. But this place was cold, and it was dark, and he had run so far from home that he could never return.

He was pulled from his reverie when they stopped, and the thing let him into a wide chamber. It was lined with boxes, filled with some sort of serum. And every one was occupied. This room was alive. Staggeringly so. Every single one of the jars held a mind, human, detached from it's body. Every single one of them pulsed with life, thoughts flooding his mind they were screaming so loud. Suddenly, the system made sense. After all, what was a better judge of a human mind than one of it's own? An elegant solution, really, if he had to be honest with himself.

"This is what we are."

"A collective." He smirked. "Elegant."

"What are you?"

"An older thing than you might ever be able to comprehend."

"If you were ever human, we would be able to judge you. Our Inspector brought you to us because we thought you were like us. We thought you could be a part of us. But we can't even see your mind."

"Because humans have forgotten how to comprehend things like I am."

"Are there others?"

He thought back to the child Soma, to his father, to a castle trapped so far out of this world that it could never return. He could never return. "Not anymore."

The thing raised a gun to him, and he knew what it meant to do. It could not allow anomalies in the system. And it could not integrate him, because it could not read him. It meant to kill him, instead. To bury the anomaly in this chamber where it lived.

"Destroying is easier than understanding, then?" He prompted.

"We cannot let our secret get out."

"Your girl knew." The girl, the one who had brought him here. Who did not trust him. She had known this, he realized with a certainty. She knew what her society was made of and she still fought on it's side. For a time.

"That is an experiment. A test run, to see how society will react to what we have created."

"Humans do not like to feel subjugated by other humans. They may retaliate."

The thing inclined it's head, lowered it's gun. "But where will they go?"

"They'll manage. You are new. You are young, you have not seen all that humans have survived. You can only judge them with the mind of a human. You may never know what they are capable of."

Impossible cruelty. Unfathomable love. He had seen both, he had see so much more than this collective of minds, trying to wrap themselves around the whole of human experience. 

"We allow them freedom. We provide peace, stability. We weed out the wrong and the rotten and make a better society for the masses." It defended itself to him. "And by learning you, we can judge you."

"Tell me then. What color am I?" He asked. Curiosity, really. Idle. After all, after a time, this too would be gone, and he would see what was built in it's stead.


End file.
